Canada Free Press

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Canada Free Press is a Canadian website, which publishes news stories, features, and editorials. It is published in Toronto.

1 Origins as Our Toronto
2 Racial controversy
3 Criticism
4 Conspiracy theories
5 Notes and sources
6 External links

[edit] Origins as Our Toronto

Canada Free Press was established in 1991 as Our Toronto, with the assistance of then Toronto City Councillor Tony O'Donohue. Judi McLeod has edited the newspaper since its inception. Arthur Weinreb is the current associate editor.

Canadian conservative pundits including Rachel Marsden, Ezra Levant, and Kevin Steel have contributed to the publication.

The publication has also had members of the NDP (New Democratic Party) write for it. These include Michael Lockey, who was the paper's Associate Editor from 1991 to 1996, and Peter Tabuns who wrote a guest column in 1996.^[1] Michael Lockey, a life-long NDP activist and card-carrying member, unsuccessfully tried challenging Jack Layton for the NDP nomination in the 1991 Toronto Mayoralty race.^[2]

O'Donohue and McLeod had a falling out which resulted in him unsuccessfully suing the paper in 1994. O'Donohue believed that the paper's articles David Verses Goliath and Ten Reasons Not To Vote For Tony O'Donohue - distributed as an insert with the Our Toronto special election issue - caused him to lose the election. ^[3] ^[4]

The CFP has a history of endorsing NDP and Liberal candidates: NDP Barbara Hall and Liberals Tony O'Donohue, Betty Disero and Chris Korwin-Kuczynski in 1991; NDP Jack Layton and Liberal Mario Silva in 1994; NDP Martin Silva in the 1995 Ontario Provincial Election; NDPers Peter Tabuns, Kyle Rae, Rob Maxwell and Liberal Judy Sgro in 1997. Associate editor Julius Melnitzer endorsed Barbara Hall in 1997.

In 2000, the publication began focusing on international affairs.

In 2005, the Free Press was engaged in a war of words with Ezra Levant's Western Standard over Rachel Marsden's suitability as a conservative commentator. The CFP was forced to apologize for casting doubt on Western Standard writer Kevin Steel's integrity and implying that he had plagiarized Toronto Star writer Antonia Zerbisias.

[edit] Racial controversy

CFP has published allegedly discriminatory and racist comments about people who live in Turkey. [1] William Hagan has written that "The admission of Turkey into the European Community will be the final blow to the Christian identity of Europe. Once the Turkish people are free to live in and work, legally, in the European nation of their choice, the problem will not be Paris burning but a deluge of Islamic immigrants into the Christian world which will be unstoppable. If one remembers with horror the acts of Black September, the Red Brigade, or the sectarian violence in Yugoslavia; then, just wait until every citizen of Turkey has a European Passport." [2]

In 2006, McLeod wrote an article accusing Jewish banking interests of being behind illegal immigrant protests in several American states. She believed the instigators instructed tens of thousands of protesters how to protest and were attempting to create news, political agitation and were trying to prevent laws from being enforced. [3]

[edit] Criticism

Toronto Conservative politician Paul Christie also won a retraction in 1997 after the website accused Christie of not being up to date on a subject because he had just returned from a five-week long holiday. ^[5]

An ad rep won damages for unpaid wages in a small claims lawsuit in 2000. [4]

Canada Free Press and Garth Pritchard apologized in 2005 to David Pugliese and CanWest Global Media Works Publications Inc. for defaming them in an article written by Pritchard entitled "Bedroom Slipper Journalism". Pritchard had falsely accused Pugliese of not having any hands-on experience and lacking credibility. In fact, Pugliese has reported from active war/conflict zones as well as peacekeeping operations. The Canada Free Press admitted that their writer Pritchard had knowingly lied. [5]

McLeod plagiarized the satirical online journal The Onion in a 2005 article about Cardinal Maradiaga apparently unaware that the source article itself was parody and not a genuine interview. [6]

The CFP has also had to print corrections to CSL International, which former Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin's family owns, and The Tides Foundation.

[edit] Conspiracy theories

In July 2004, the CFP published that Michael Moore would be charged within the week for interfering with the 2004 Canadian Federal election. [7] In Canada, it is illegal for non-residents to publicly campaign in elections. No charges were laid and Elections Canada, the body overseeing any infractions, denied that they had ever intended to charge Moore.

McLeod also wrote an article wondering whether Conservative leader Stephen Harper had been co-opted by the Liberals to throw the 2004 election. [8] McLeod confused the Privy Council Office and the Queen's Privy Council which are in fact two separate bodies and have separate responsibilities.

Beginning in 2005, David Hawkins, founder of the Citizen's Association of Forensic Economists at Hawks' CAFE, ^{[citation needed]} and McLeod wrote a series of articles on the UN's radical socialist agenda executed across Intranets and virtual private networks, operated by the self-styled "Global Custodians". The ongoing series linked $40 trillion hedge funds, via an online portal on the 79th floor of One World Trade Center, to "disruptive technologies" developed by Canada for alleged use in the UN Oil-for-Food scam, 9/11 and Kyoto fraud. [9]

Hawkins and McLeod allege that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States may have been a Mafia plot and not the work of Arab terrorists. [10]

[edit] Notes and sources

^ Tabuns, Peter. "The `Bad Boy' Law", Toronto Free Press. June/July 1995, p. 5
^ MacLeod, Robert. 5th candidate set to enter mayoral race; The Globe and Mail. June 1, 1991.
^ Cooly, Glenn. "Rightist lauding Layton: Right-wing tab, Our Toronto, touts Jack Layton as class act. Jack Layton says bizarre new backing a surprise," Now Weekly, November 3/9, 1994
^ Di Matteo, Enzo. "Right-wing friends flee from tabloid's independent stance: Our Toronto faces ad drain and lawsuit by a high-profile founder," Now Weekly, November 17/23, 1994
^ No Byline. "Correction" Toronto Free Press. October 1997, p 4.